my story

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Hi! I am Leslie, the creator of MathKit.

I am a math teacher turned stay-at-home mom. I love math, and am working to foster deep math understanding and a love of learning in my eight year old daughter and in my four year old son.

I believe parents of kids grades K-3 are in a perfect position to help form their child's view of math and math learning. I want to guide parents to help their children get a strong, confident start in math.

For 15 years, I taught and tutored math from age 5 up through college. My classroom teaching experience has been primarily college and high school, including Math for Elementary Educators courses. Currently immersed in my daughter's elementary school math experience, I have read and learned much about teaching and learning math in the early years of school.

I know what math skills kids need to build a strong foundation for future math. Working with older students has also shown me how essential it is to build the right mindset for math learning.

That is why I created MathKit -- to help every family play their way to math confidence!

I MADE MATHKIT TO HELP BUILD CONFIDENCE AND NUMBER SENSE.

I bring a unique perspective to early math learning.

My master's degree in math and my college teaching experience give me the long view on what aspects of math learning are most essential to future success.

My experience "teaching the teachers" helped me get the big picture on what is going on in the classroom and in math education.

My experience as a mom has taught me a lot about the challenges of supporting your child's learning, sometimes after a long day of school and with many demands on your time.

I believe two aspects of K-3 math learning are essential to long-term success.

Confidence: MathKit incorporates everything that I know about helping students believe in themselves. Confidence building is all designed into the games--plus, I have tips to help parents.

As a math teacher, my favorite time was one-on-one. I got to know so many students and really help them work through their own difficulties with math. A lot of those difficulties had to do with confidence! In addition to helping those students with math concepts, I learned how to help students believe in their own abilities. Somewhere along the way, they had decided that they were not good at math. That self-doubt made it much harder for them to learn.

I helped my students realize that being good at math was more about mindset, and less about natural ability, than they ever realized. That was the key to their success!

Number sense: As a high school and college math teacher, I realize that knowing your math facts is just part of the goal. Feeling confident with numbers and how addition and subtraction connect are also essential predictors of future success.

Can you guess what holds people back from success in Algebra? For many, it is the way they learned early math concepts. Most of my students who disliked math had tried to memorize procedures for all of the math they ever learned. It was exhausting, and by the time they entered my classroom, they were extremely discouraged. I want to keep the focus in the early years on understanding, and giving enough chances to practice to reach mastery.

Many parents learned math facts through memorization. Parents have known their facts so long, they aren't sure how to help their child. Some are struggling to help their kids memorize. MathKit makes it easy to build understanding. Follow my guidance and help your child gain excellent number sense.

Let's change the tone in math learning and help our kids believe in themselves!